


survivor's guilt

by Fluoradine



Category: Bastion (Video Game)
Genre: (i think so?), Bonding, Building trust, Emotions, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Introspection, Memories, Out of Body Experiences, The Calamity - Freeform, The Pantheon, just post-calamity feelings and unhealthy pantheon stuff: the novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15067916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluoradine/pseuds/Fluoradine
Summary: The Kid saw Zulf leave after breaking the monument, but he didn't see what lead up to it the night of. That's something only Zulf knows, and can tell.





	survivor's guilt

**Author's Note:**

> i'm in love with bastion wow - i always wondered what happened before zulf broke the monument and stormed off, because we never really got anything about that in-game. please enjoy!

The air always felt warm on the Bastion. Zulf didn’t find it out of place - it had been the end of summer when the Calamity tore the world to shreds, and even though the ground was wrecked beyond repair, there was no reason why the sun would stop turning to awe at it. The Gods were too fearsome to be interrupted by something so small. They would do their job whether there were worshippers alive to love them or not.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to pray. And Zulf certainly didn’t have anything better to do. No one was going to pester or interrupt his moments of solitude, when he was surrounded by the four walls of the Pantheon, mind enwrapped in worship and body as light as a Pecker’s tail feathers, floating serenely to the ground in a world of his own. 

He wished someone would, though. Just for old times’ sake

“You really can’t read a word of this?”

Zia was sitting on a stump, swinging her feet a little too close to Zulf’s shoulders. “No,” she said, gesturing to the hidebound journal in his hands. “Well, I can understand a few things. ‘Yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘love,’ and my name.” She sighed. “Other than that, it’s completely unintelligible.” 

Zulf stared at the white ink on the front cover. He knew it was her father’s name, Venn: a man he’d heard about in passing but never considered to be special. It was apparently the only thing Zia could save from her house after the Calamity knocked it down, and the only thing she had when the Kid found her all alone in Prosper Bluff.

“Why this book?” Zulf asked. So strange that she was the only other survivor they’d found so far. There were barely any Ura living in the City - most refugees lived on the outskirts of the Walls, or married into Cael families to hide themselves. He’d never expected to see another one of his kind ever again, especially not right after something as cataclysmic as the Calamity had been. 

Zia shrugged. “It was in the den where I hid. My father, he…” She paused, and looked down into her hands. “He must’ve been writing in it before the Marshals called him to come get me. I thought something inside might be important, but if I can’t read it, I guess it’s not much use.”

The journal looked old. It couldn’t have been a work log in this condition - Mancers had access to the best of the City’s technology. It was probably a diary of some sort, a journal for personal thoughts, nothing for Zia to be interested in. 

Though, she didn’t really need to be interested in what it said to care about what it was. So little remained in the world now, it was unlikely she’d be able to find anything else that once belonged to her family or anyone else she knew. It was her last remaining fragment of the old world, the only thing she had saved in the chaos of it all. 

Worthless possessions seemed to be the only things that the Calamity had saved for anyone. Where he’d once had little riches, ancient mementos and fine crafts, loyal friends and a loved one he valued above any treasure, the only things Zulf had to his name now were a smoking pipe, prayer ribbons, and his sanity. Zia was in the exact same situation - her life in Caelondia had been literally ripped out from beneath her feet, replaced with a rock in the sky and strangers she had no reason to trust with anything, much less her only memento. 

“Can I open it?” Zulf asked. Zia nodded, shifting on the stump. The sky was turning a faint orange, warning of a sunset soon to come, and the normally-warm air was starting to chill. They would both have to go inside before dark - mosquitoes apparently weren’t afraid to fly this high in the sky, and it made for some unenjoyable nights outside on the Bastion. 

Carefully, Zulf undid the string keeping the journal together. A few pages came instantly loose, but the rest pretty much stayed together. Zia watched as Zulf laid everything down on the grass, taking a first glance at the words. Venn’s handwriting was messier than he’d expected a Mancer’s to be, but he could already make out some scientific terms, jargon, and equations he couldn’t understand in his wildest dreams. 

“What can you make of it?” Zia asked as Zulf turned a page upside-down to read more scrawling. 

“It’s not what I expected,” he said, reading a few lines more. It did seem to be a work log - perhaps the Mancers weren’t able to provide him with anything better, or perhaps they couldn’t spare a better journal for an Ura man like him. 

“Can you read it?”

“Of course I can read it,” Zulf said. “Whether I can actually understand it or not is a different question. But I’ll try my best.” He put the page down, and gathered up all the loose ones within the hide. “I’ll translate it for you. All of it to my best ability. I’m sure it’ll be done by tomorrow night, at the latest.”

Zia smiled as Zulf said it. Her grin was so familiar, the same one that Zulf’s Cael friends always had when they were either giddy or too drunk to stand properly. She had copied it perfectly, down to the missing tooth, impromptu blush and all else. “Thank you so much, Zulf. That would mean a lot to me.”

“It’s no trouble,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll be lighter reading than a Cael history book.”

Zia chuckled. She really did sound unmistakeable from a Cael teenager. It was her smaller quirks that made Zulf think of her as a stranger, manners and actions she might not even notice were different from what she was supposed to be, or at least what Zulf had thought she would be when first hearing about her. 

“It’s good to see someone like you, you know,” Zia said. “I didn’t know anyone else survived, much less an… well, an Ura.”

“I know. I wasn’t expecting it, either.” Zulf shifted on the grass, slouching lower to the ground yet still managing to meet Zia’s eyes. There was another little quirk - Ura children normally towered over their Cael counterparts at any age, yet Zia was sitting at such a tiny height. She was the strangest familiar person Zulf had ever met before. 

“Did you know anyone like us before?” Zia asked Zulf. He shook his head.

“Only one or two others. And they were already much older than me, so I never got to know them very well.” 

“Oh.” Zia looked back down into her hands. “So this is just pure luck, then.”

Her legs had slowly stopped swinging against the stump, something Zulf only noticed once she fell quiet. The two Ura sat in silence for a few moments, as some early mosquitoes buzzed around them. Zulf didn’t really know what to say - he wasn’t sure if she needed comfort, a lie, or just a moment to take in the truth - that they really were the only two of their countrymen left alive. 

“You know, I’ve never been to the Terminals,” Zia said, her voice a little quieter, as if saying that out loud made her a shame. “Not even when I was little. Prosper Bluff was the furthest out from Caelondia I’d ever been before, and that’s barely beyond the Walls.”

“So you’ve been alone in the City your whole life?” Zulf asked.

Zia nodded. “It wasn’t a horrible place to be. There wasn’t much to compare it to, anyway. But I always wondered what it was like in the Terminals.”

“Didn’t your father ever tell you about them?”

“He never brought it up,” Zia said. “Touchy subject, I guess.”

She finally looked up from her hands, locking eyes with Zulf with sudden intensity. “What are they like?”

Well. Zulf didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been in the Tazal Terminals for years. The last he remembered of them was cold air, icy ground and the suffocating smell of earth. Dark, damp tunnels that lead nowhere and a spirit of darkness that followed him no matter how far away from that place he got…

But that wasn’t what Zia wanted to hear. Zulf knew what it was like to fantasize about somewhere he longed to be - he’d built the fantasy city in his head before, imagined residents with smiling faces who were always kind and understood him for who he was without even needing his name. He could only imagine how Zia thought of the Tazal Terminals - made of gold, the streets filled with Ura and the skies full of sun and clouds….

Was now the time to shatter that fantasy? The whole world was in shambles already - was he allowed to destroy a dream, too? Could dreams survive the Calamity, or did they have to fall away just like everything else?

“I…” The moment Zulf opened his mouth, Zia’s eyes lit up, and he couldn’t tell her the truth. The Calamity couldn’t take everything away at once - at least one thing from the old world had to be saved, for now. 

“They’re smaller than you think,” he said, Zia leaning closer as he made up his white lie. “But they’re grand. There used to be palaces and mansions on every stretch of land before the Ura moved underground, but a few survived the war - I can remember spending a night in one when I was very little.”

He left out that he’d been only gotten pity shelter after spending weeks on death’s door outside, but Zia didn’t care. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, and what hope he gave her could do no wrong, either. 

Zulf talked about the fake Terminals for longer, spinning gold from straw tales of parades, parties and celebrations, gorgeous snow and amazing people. The curiosity in Zia’s eyes only grew as she listened, imagined the great city she’d always believed in coming true. Twinges of guilt nagged at Zulf as he kept lying, but he brushed them aside. This was for the better - both for his mood, and for her morale. 

“I wish I could’ve seen them,” Zia said once Zulf had exhausted himself. “They sound beautiful. Was Caelondia even worth moving to?”

Zulf paused. “Whatever the Tazal Terminals had, Caelondia had a thousand times more of. Life was better there. I’m glad to have enjoyed it before it was gone.”

Zia flashed a smile as he said it, and Zulf remembered the faces of his friends again, people he trusted millions more than he’d ever trusted another Ura and given him more warmth and love than he’d ever felt in the Terminals. People who had died in vain, just for him to pretend like their compassion had meant nothing above the place he had done everything to get away from. 

“I’m gonna go inside before it gets dark,” Zia said, getting up from the stump and stretching her arms.“Get back to me on the journal when you can, okay? I’d be happy to spend all day tomorrow hearing about it.”

“I’ll won’t hesitate on it,” Zulf said.

“Alright. See you later, Zulf,”

He watched her turn around and leave, heading for the tent on the other side of the Bastion, perhaps still thinking of the Terminals as a great, grand place of happiness that had been torn away too soon. Telling the truth was harder than it had ever been before, even with the world stripped down to its own bare truths. No clouds were left to cover up the sky’s blemishes, no earth to conceal roots and dirt, no people to be two-faced or pretty up the harsh reality of the world, if Zulf hadn’t been an exception. 

Tomorrow. It would all be resolved tomorrow. Zia would have a night to dream about the Terminals and sleep on all her fantasies before learning the truth someday. But as she did, Zulf would channel his truth in his own way, as he thought while walking across the tall grass towards the stone steps of the Shrine. 

 

The Shrine had been the last thing the Kid built on the Bastion. Zulf had watched him pull boards and bricks together for two days to sculpt it all, all while the other Cael, Rucks, had mumbled and complained about it being a waste of good space. He’d made his own beliefs clear from the first conversation Zulf had with him, but he didn’t mind. Most Caels didn’t care for the Pantheon outside of their parades and garden decorations, but they all somehow managed to think they were special for doing it.

Still, the Pantheon was Zulf’s element. Whenever he was between the four walls of the building, adorned with idols and monuments of the Gods he’d looked to and trembled below since he was a child, he felt divine. It was more of a home than the Tazal Terminals had ever been, provided more security than any defenses could ever give to him, and understood him better than he understood himself. It was his heart, the essence of his being, and Zulf wouldn’t wish it away now or ever. 

Being in the shrine and communicating with the Gods was really the only thing worth doing nowadays. The Calamity had overcome Zulf with all kinds of emotion, from shock to anger and horror, depression and exhilaration and just about everything in between. The Gods had always accepted emotion from their followers - they understood best how to balance extremes, after all - and brought all of it out during a session of prayer and worship, consuming the person with their being and everything they stood to control. 

That was exactly what made worshipping worth doing. There was no pain Zulf could feel that the Gods couldn’t match, no high he could reach that they couldn’t double. The power they had was attractive, and after the Calamity had torn his world apart, Zulf clung onto it like a desperate man to shore. 

Worship was meant to be done in groups. The few in the City who did fear the Gods normally met together to share and even out the connection’s strength. But Zulf had gotten used to doing it alone. He found the process to be much more violent now than it had ever been, as he threw his whole mind, body, and spirit in with disregard to what it might to do him. There was no one left to shame him for being so reckless, of course, but also no consequences that he cared about incurring anymore. 

As Zulf set his feet down on the Shrine’s wooden floor, he instantly felt warm. The dying sun was lighting the room to perfection, its rays not strong enough to burn Zulf’s sickly skin but bright enough to make all the idols on the Pantheon’s shelf shine and glow. They were kept furthest back in the Shrine, revered and respected in their place of power, and Zulf felt his thoughts quiet as he approached them, prayer ribbons tight in hand. 

Zulf took Micia’s idol off of the decorated shelf, and set it down on the small stage. “Mother, I’m here,” he said in Uran, bowing his head. The Lorn Mother was his favourited God, the one to whom he felt the strongest connection to. Her idol was the cleanest among the row, second only to Jevel in his shiny chrome tower. In the state he was in, strength and humility called to him in equal portions: the Calamity had given him a lot to feel, and with guidance, he could use all that emotion to his strength. 

Zulf laid his prayer ribbons at the base of Micia’s statue. “The past few days have been strange, Mother,” he said, closing his eyes. Talking with the Gods wasn’t a process any worshipper did to get anything for themselves - it was only a way to explain themselves, begin the session with a thought or single goal in mind. “By now, you’ll know about what happened to the world. I’ve had time to come to terms with it, but I still…”

He sighed. One single breath filled the entire room. “I still can’t understand why. What did we do to deserve something so terrible? Caelondia had been at peace, the Ura had been making amends, everyone had been living happily - what did we all do?”

Zulf shuddered. Already, he could feel the connection. Micia’s spirit of loss and longing acknowledged his devastation, and was coming to guide him through expressing it. “I don’t ask that you tell me exactly why it happened. If it was your will, then I accept whatever punishment this calamity was for. But….

“I’ve met others. People like myself, who’ve been shaken to their core and reduced to nothing but objects and dreams. I want to help them accept everything that’s been changed, but I can’t even start without understanding it myself. Mother, help me see what was behind the Calamity - help me to acknowledge my feelings and let them all go.”

Without opening his eyes, Zulf sat down in front of the stage, hands tucked into soft fists and spirit of Micia resonating within him. In his mind’s eye, the walls of the Shrine were no longer there - the shrine was instead the whole Bastion, the Pantheon was everywhere. With his mind set on understanding the Calamity and spirit one with Micia, he was ready to drift away. 

Normally, worshipping the Pantheon was a lot like meditation. One would sit in front of the idol they wanted to respect, in silent conversation with both their own mind and the God in front of them. It was a time to count blessings and recount pain, thanking the Gods for their generosity and guidance, and was a way to get a better reputation of some sorts with the Pantheon, so that one day, they might be there to catch one when they fall. 

But Zulf’s own worship had become more of an out-of-body experience than a self reflection. As he started to drift, he found himself looking down on the Bastion from the sky, hovering above all that the Calamity had destroyed. He was in Micia’s place - the only way to understand the magnitude of the Calamity was through her eyes, after all. They were one and the same, nowhere near each other if not spiritually with the other, and he felt at peace for a short second before she blinked, and everything changed. 

The world below Zulf unravelled from its present state as simply as thread from a spool. One moment Zulf was above the Bastion and the next he was floating in space, watching planets form and stars explode, building the world up from its basics as Micia once had. Together, they built the island all of the world sat on without lifting a finger, creating life out of nothing, giving and taking just as Micia devoted herself to doing. 

Once the island was there, the rest of the world came together. All of Cael and Uran history happened in seconds right before Zulf’s eyes: the Rippling Walls that had taken years to build rose into the sky, the untameable Wilds were domesticated as the Tazal Terminals dug deep into the earth’s crust and the sea filled up with water, life and nature All of it was beautiful, structured and unbreakable, just as the Pantheon had made it to be and remain as forever. 

Until, suddenly, everything disappeared. There was no explosion, no roar of sound - it had all just stopped. A void laid below Zulf, empty space where the world used to be, and he blinked with Micia’s eyes - where had it gone? 

Then, a single light flashed, and everything came undone. The island was split into pieces, chunks of earth falling into the void and waters of the sea evaporating into a thin and invisible mist. Buildings and cities turned to ashes - Caelondia, the city Zulf had loved like a motherland, had come undone just like that. 

More fell as he watched helplessly. He saw the faces of his family, friends, his lover and everyone he’d once cared about, their faces turning grey and thin as dead laves. They, too, had come undone. The Wilds were torn apart as they came undone along with the Tazal Terminals and the Rippling Walls, falling without any grace before Zulf could lift a mighty finger to stop them. 

And soon there was nothing, no life, no earth and no skies - just stars, a mere imitation of what the world had once stood for, what life it had been host to simple moments ago. 

Loss. Zulf felt it in the deepest parts of himself, more straining and painful than he’d ever been hurt to feel before. Micia’s emotions consumed him, so that he could physically make no sound but was crying out in spirit for all that had been lost. The Calamity had been larger than life - it had taken the Gods’ work and blown it beyond their realm. There was no replacing what had been lost, and surely there could be no recovering from the aftermath, either. 

And just as Zulf felt Micia’s loss, he felt an ache for the past, the longing she shared with him while staring at the void. He could remember things as vividly as if they’d just happened now, things he couldn’t remember in the real world at all - his parents’ faces, the last words of the Cael missionary, the scent of Caelondian spices and the warmth of the bright sun shining down on the City.

He remembered it all, and he ached along with the Lorn Mother, matching her grief to a divine quota. It was a world he would never see again, people who were beyond dead and memories that would never return. What a cruel trick to play, and what a horrible way for the world to burn. 

But why? Why had the Calamity happened? There had to be a reason behind it - if the Gods had meant to punish their worshippers for something, they had gone far beyond the means necessary. Was there something Zulf wasn’t seeing even through Micia’s eyes, or was he just not understanding?

Just as he thought that, something appeared in the void. Out of the world’s ashes, Zulf could see a shape - some sort of box, growing larger the longer Zulf squinted at it for. Its exact form was too blurry to see, and even Micia couldn’t tell him what it was meant as: a warning of something worse to come, or as an answer for the Calamity.

Zulf tried to reach for it. He lifted his arm, clawing for a closer look, but he couldn’t get close enough. The answer was right there, it had to be, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get it. 

What was the meaning of this? Was Micia playing with his mind? How far did he need to stretch, how much pain did he have to feel, how much did he have to endure to understand the Calamity? He would do anything, give anything to have the answer, finally see why the world had been ripped out from underneath his feet so soon - 

“Is now a bad time?”

Zulf was yanked back into reality so hard and so fast he got whiplash. His eyes snapped open back inside the Shrine, walls of wood on either side, and the Kid’s face right next to his. Two eyes stared down at him, watching Zulf with a kind of awe that wasn’t exactly respectful, nor welcome. However long he’d been there for, Zulf had no idea, and wasn’t happy with any second of it. 

“A little bit of one, yes,” he said with a scowl. Once a connection was broken, there was no jumping back in. Micia’s spirit was gone, not in his body and certainly not in this room, and he could already feel the after-effects of such an intense experience starting to set in. 

“I just wanted to see you before I head on out,” the Kid said, sitting down next to Zulf. He needed no invitation into a building he had built on a rock he’d practically pulled together with his own bare hands, but it might’ve been nice if he could at least knock before coming in. 

“Where are you off to?” Zulf asked, holding his head up to keep it from crashing to the ground, and taking a shallow breath through his tight chest. 

“The Wilds.” Now, where Zia’s grin had been a good imitation of a Cael’s smile, the Kid’s was pure, unbridled Cael energy. Zulf had known the exact kind of person he was the moment they’d met in the Hanging Gardens. The Kid had more heart than he knew what to do with, and more courage than he could keep under control - even for his young age, if anyone was fit to survive the Calamity, it was him. 

“So soon?” Zulf went to put Micia’s idol back on the shelf among the other Gods. Night had fallen while he was lost in worship, and there would be no time to start on translating Venn’s journal tonight if not just to skim a few pages. 

“Well, I cleared out everythin’ from the City. The Bastion has a good map of the whole wild unknown, so there’s no way I could get lost. Besides, I’d wanna meet the beast who wants to mess with these.” 

He punched at the air, and cackled. “I’m just itchin’ for it. You want me to bring you back a souvenir or something?”

“No need. I’m perfectly happy with the gift from the Orchard last time.” Zulf put his prayer ribbons back in his pocket, and wiggled his fingers, just to feel himself in his own body again. These worshipping sessions were powerful, and he was more than happy to engage in them, but a higher high always lead to a harder fall, and a longer time needed to get back up. 

“Ah, I’ll get you a rock. Zia wants me to bring her back ‘one of those purple flowers’ she saw in Prosper. Didn’t have the heart to tell her it’s a Swampweed yet. Guess she’ll have to find that out for herself.” 

The Kid cackled again, and for the thousandth time that night, Zulf felt reminiscent of the City. But this time, he didn’t feel any nostalgia over it. He felt no longing for what no longer existed, no pain of loss for everything that was destroyed - Micia had helped him let those feelings go, just as he’d asked her to do during the session. 

“So when are you leaving?” Zulf asked. The Kid stood up, a spring in his step as they both walked towards the door. 

“As soon as I can. Apparently the Wilds are best approached durin’ the dark,” he said. “You’ve been through the Wilds before, haven’t you?”

Zulf raised a brow. “How did you know?”

“Well, I didn’t think they sent horse-drawn carriages from the Terminals to the City,” the Kid said, shrugging. “You had to get there somehow, didn’t you?”

Zulf nodded, and couldn’t help but smirk. “Got any advice for takin’ on the beasts out there?” the Kid asked as he opened the doors, letting all the cool night air inside. 

“Depends on what kind of weapons you’ll be bringing. Do you have a machete or a pike?”

The Kid shook his head. “All I got’s a hammer and a Breaker’s bow. You reckon I can make that work?”

“Knowing you, you’ll do just fine.”

“Well, I’ll tell you all about it over brandy tomorrow,” the Kid said. “You _sure_ you don’t want anythin’ from the Wilds?”

“A Lunkhead tooth. If you can manage to chop one off, that is.”

“Manage? I should get you both jaws for insultin’ me like that.”

Zulf couldn’t help but smile again at the Kid. He had so much determination, and with no fear to hold him back from pursuing it, the Wilds wouldn’t stand a chance. “See you later, then.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow!” the Kid shouted as he started to run towards the Skyway. Zulf watched him pitch himself over the barrier, not even considering that he might fall thousands of feet down if he missed. Caels really were something great and strange - he was happy their spirits hadn’t all been lost in the Calamity. 

Alone again as the Skyway lit up, Zulf looked out onto the world above him. Although the view from Micia’s eyes was awe-inspiring, he much preferred this view of everything from down below. Down here, he could still see the range of the Calamity, the broken land and ashes of everything below, along with the pieces of land that had survived despite all odds. 

Yet he still didn’t understand why it happened. Perhaps Micia would answer that for him on another day. She had certainly done enough today, numbing all of Zulf’s emotion with a coating that would wash away with a good night’s sleep, and some mender mead in the morning. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, per se, but there were some things that just had to be done. 

 

Zulf’s tent was the smallest of the four set up on the Bastion. He had so little worldly possessions that he didn’t need any room bigger than his body, and had no want for any luxury space. That meant it was also the thinnest tent, and just his luck, it had started raining right as he fell asleep.

The noise was irritatingly unbearable, and the droplets that were leaking through the roof were even worse. Zulf was less upset that rain clouds could get this high in the sky than he was mad that his headache was still pounding after his worship, and couldn’t be ailed by sleep yet. But he would try to make the most of it - after all, there was always time for some light reading. 

So, Venn’s journal was on his lap. Zulf had lit a candle far away from water droplets and its pages, and was scribbling down a Cael translation of Venn’s Uran notes on spare paper. The journal itself wasn’t interesting - Mancer work and some personal reminders, for the most part, along with beautiful drawings and a few mathematical equations that were all swimming before Zulf’s eyes.

He couldn’t really understand what any of Venn’s words meant. He could read them, of course, but Zulf was clueless as to what they all alluded to. Science had never been his forte, and with the headache and physical aches combined with a late-night loose mind, all Zulf was was sore, tired, and trying. 

As the candlelight flickered, Zulf flipped forward two pages more. However long the rain lasted, he didn’t really care - he was certain he would pass out long before the storm ended. Hopefully the tent wouldn’t flood, or else the journal’s pages would be ruined, and Zia would never -

Suddenly, it flashed before his eyes. _Calamity._ Zulf blinked, and looked down at the journal. _Calamity._ There it was. Written in Uran, spelt perfectly right and capitalized to match the name of the apocalypse he’d been living in the wake of. What on earth was that word doing in a Mancer’s work journal?

Suspicion started to gather up for Zulf. He grabbed one of the loose pages and scanned each line, looking for a repeat of that word or anything that sounded similar to it. When he came up dry, he flipped the page over, and there it was again - _Calamity._ Clear in print, _The Calamity._ In a Mancer’s work journal. Written in Uran, in a book one of the people on the Bastion had given him. 

It was as if Zulf had been brought back to life from the dead, his heart started racing so fast. He flipped to the section of the journal this page had fallen out of, and was confronted by elaborate drawings, blueprints for some sort of cannon and a certain kind of firepower along with notes on how to light it properly. 

_Stand far back - do not detonate near civilian area - aim only for target beyond the Walls._ This string of words he had had to read again, run his hands over the ink, repeat them out loud to make sure they were really written there, and not some kind of late night illusion made up by his exhausted mind. 

But they were real, and this journal was no ordinary work log. A secret was hiding in here, an answer to a question Zulf had asked the Gods in humility and never gotten. Venn had done something terrible - something impossible, and something irreversible now that it had been done. 

Suddenly the journal caught fire. It became a raging flame inside the tent, burning a thousand times brighter than the candle on the floor, and Zulf flipped through the emblazoned pages with a pit starting to grow deeper and deeper in his stomach. Each page burnt his fingers, but he chased down the blurry object he’d seen through Micia’s eyes just hours ago like he was one with her spirit again, feeding the fire with both his fear and his disbelief. 

Venn’s handwriting became messier and messier as Zulf read on, the words becoming wood that kept the fire growing. _If we do this, we’ll never have another war again - it’ll be mercy for the Ura._ His drawings became more elaborate, annotated with more description and longer words _\- Caelondia lies about 1,500 miles from the Terminals, requiring about fifty pounds of dynamite. Gods help whoever has to fire that thing from the Walls._

Zulf’s eyes were scorched as he read the Uran words, begging for it not to mean what he thought it meant. But the fire only raged larger, lashed out harder as he turned page after page _\- Glory for the mother if we only do this once, all for the better of our lives and theirs - it’s such a brave task to take to all on one’s own._ He couldn’t understand, he didn’t want to understand, but the fire was too large and too destructive to look away from now - because there it was, spelt out in proper Uran, the language that Zulf was now the only surviving speaker of. 

_Once the Terminals are gone, Caelondia will prosper. It’s the only way to ensure peace, through Calamity._

Zulf let go of the journal. Its fire was burning out, extinguishing just as fast as it had been ignited, and the pages were now covered in ash and embers. Zulf’s fingertips were burnt to such a degree that he couldn’t feel them anymore - white hot heat had paralyzed his body, and the smoke left over in the air was starting to haze his mind. 

His hands were rested on the last page - Venn’s final words were in right front of him, but he couldn’t read them. Everything he had just seen was clouding his mind, falling in front of his eyes like sparks from a dying bonfire. 

_Calamity - aim only for target beyond the Walls - never have another war - end this sorry fighting. Ura, Caelondia, the Gods, the Terminals, Mother’s glory. Bravery, mercy, hope and prosperity, all for the better of our world and theirs…._

What had Venn done?

_Zia._

_Tell Zia I love her after this is done._

What had they all done?

Something moved. Inside Zulf’s body, buried deep within him, something cracked, and split apart. The Calamity hadn’t been the will of the Gods - it had been the will of Caelondia, crafted to wipe his people out through fire and destruction. It had meant to exterminate the Ura to stop war, of all things, _war_ over land disagreements - the world had been torn to shreds over land disagreements in the name of the Calamity. 

But it had failed. The Calamity had failed, it must have. Zulf was alive, an _Ura_ had survived, and all of Caelondia was dust and nothing more. What he’d thought to blame on the Gods had been made by his neighbours, planning the death of everyone like him while he drank and made friends with Caels, loved their city and culture, remembered their faces into death and begged to have all that they’d given to him back once it was ash on the ground…

Zulf’s head no longer ached. His fingertips no longer burned, his mind had stopped racing. He knew the truth. Zia had no idea what her father had done. The Kid had no idea what his city had done. They were bystanders to it all, clueless to why and how they had even gotten on this damn rock in the sky and why everyone they’d ever loved was dead and gone forever -

It angered him, and it angered the Gods. Some remnant of Micia’s spirit left within Zulf was splitting him apart, making his own emotion rise above the level of anything she, the mother of all things, could contain. He was going to explode, implode, 

A single droplet of water fell onto the candle. Its light went out, but Zulf didn’t notice. All of the fire that had once been in his hands was inside him, but he couldn’t move. Shock, fear, overwhelming anger, all of it consumed him at once. The truth was too much to bear, too much to shatter in one man in a lifetime. But, through the confusion, he made up his mind - or, some spirit made up his mind for him.

He had to leave. He had to tell everyone the truth. Despite their kindness, those who had survived were clueless. The truth was all that mattered, not dreams of a kind world that didn’t and had never existed, and certainly not any thoughtless courage that put actions before words. Zia’s Terminals didn’t matter, the Kid’s Wilds didn’t matter, they were all part of it - they had caused this chaos, and all this calamity. 

Zulf knew what he had to do. He had a truth to fulfill, and he couldn’t fail at it. The Calamity might have failed to kill him, but he would not repeat its mistake; he would make what was left of Caelondia pay for it.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a kudo or comment if you enjoyed - tumblr is @starchilling if you want to talk!


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